


comfort

by qainaat



Category: Steins;Gate
Genre: F/M, Mild Hurt/Comfort, Steins Gate World Line, very hurt by sg 0 and this is my way to cope
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2018-08-12
Updated: 2018-08-12
Packaged: 2019-06-26 12:21:00
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,805
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/15663129
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/qainaat/pseuds/qainaat
Summary: [For Okakuri Week 2018 Day 1. || Prompt: Comfort]In which Kurisu reflects on her feelings about the strange, eccentric man who saved her life.





	comfort

**Author's Note:**

> This is my first contrbution for the OkaKuri week! This is also my first fic of them. I can't believe I've never written about them before because if I'd call a One True One True Pairing, it'd be OkaKuri.
> 
> Enjoy!

He is tall, lean, and thin, carrying the ruggedness of the ‘mad scientist’ he claims to be. He calls himself Hououin Kyouma and his declarations are loud and confident. Even the simplest of physical activity, like pulling his phone out of his pocket for instance, requires rapid movement on his part. Everything is not the way it seems, and the world is always on edge according to him. Despite the existence of this evil ‘Organisation,’ he believes that it is he, Hououin Kyouma, who shall take the world by storm in the end.

Or at least, that’s what he wants her to believe.

She watches him, watches as he tries to pretend and she can only just see through him. It’s not that she doesn’t believe that he is this over-enthusiastic man who enjoys playing the part of this mad scientist. No, he is absolutely nuts, and that is putting it mildly. Using this persona of his, getting stabbed to save a girl he hardly knew...no sane person is capable of that.

Though, she isn’t all too sure about the fact that she was a girl he “hardly knew.” It bothers her, but not as much as it should. It is as if there was a feeling that she should know something—something more—while simultaneously a feeling existed that told her she  _does_ know.

She doesn’t know why she has started visiting this so-called lab so often; with a mad scientist, a super hacker, and a sweet girl who was too good to belong in this sketchy, cramped space. Strangely, it felt like she belonged there somehow. She hardly knew these people, but something told her she could trust them. 

Especially  _him_.

Of course, it may because he did, in fact, save her life. But it always feels like there is more. Kurisu trusted her instincts enough to know that there is a lot more not known to her.

Beyond Hououin Kyouma, was Okabe Rintarou, a caring and gentle man who will do anything for his friends. A glimpse of Okabe will always show whenever he looks at her, which is not a lot. Every time their eyes meet, for a split second she can see a very aged version of the man before her. It’s just in his eyes, but it’s enough to make her heart sink. Eyes that carry so much sadness within them, sadness displayed to her and her alone; sadness that disappears as quickly as it appears.

She spends a good couple of days revisiting the lab. The sadness remains in his eyes and she doesn’t ask. She only watches. 

“I’m so glad you’re alive,” Okabe says a week after they day they met, right after Kurisu thanks him (for the hundredth time) for saving her back then. There’s not much emotion to his words. It’s sounds like a simple statement. But even in the dark of the night where she can’t see his face, she can catch a glimpse of that sadness. That distant stare, combined by the weight of his words make her realise that there is also relief mixed somewhere in those eyes. Her heart sinks a little more.

“Why...why did you help me?” she finally finds it in herself to ask. She’s still not over the fact that it was her  _own father_ who was threatened by her to the point he tried to kill her. She’s scared and confused, and worried not only for herself, but Okabe too.

“Because you’re too important,” he answers, still not looking at her. She sees honesty in him for the first time in a while. There’s no Hououin Kyouma, there’s no pretense, there is no sadness. It’s just Okabe. Okabe Rintarou.

_Why?_ She wants to ask him.  _Why am I important? If I am, then why did you just leave me there? Why didn’t you come back? Why did you leave me alone?_

She stops. Perhaps those questions may be too harsh.

“Okarin? Kurisu-san?” A voice interrupts the silence between them. Kurisu turns around to find Mayuri’s small silhouette standing at the door. “Daru-kun brought some ice-cream. Come down before it’s all finished!”

Kurisu smiles. “Of course. We’ll be right there.” She turns to Okabe and finds his eyes locked onto Mayuri for a seemingly long moment. 

It’s then that she realises that he carries that similar look mixed with grief and relief for his friend.

* * *

A couple of days pass and Kurisu finds herself returning to the lab every day. Within that time, Okabe tells her everything. He tells her incredibly unbelievable stories of time travel. The stories may sound like those narrated by the mad scientist in him. However, he tells her everything not as his other persona, but simply as Okabe Rintarou, the man with the unnamed sadness in his gaze. 

He tells her that they had succeeded in creating a time machine, about the “D-mails,” about the Time-Leap Machine, about Mayuri’s countless deaths, about all the misery they had caused in reversing their actions.

He tells her about  _her_ death. He tells her of a war.

He tells her of the worldlines he jumped to, of all the possibilities he had seen, of all the time they had spent together working on the time machine.

If Kurisu was anywhere near as sane as she used to be, she’d have called all this redundant. However, the mysterious grief reflected in his expression all this while didn’t seem all that mysterious anymore. It was something about what he said, about how he said it. 

It all made sense.

All the things that he explains to her, they gradually click. Her dreams start to make sense. All those feelings started to explain themselves. Everything, in its own strange way, starts to fall into place.

“You’d always help me out,” he says to her. “No matter what world-line I was in, you’d always be there with me. You’d do the right thing, even if it meant sacrificing your own self.”

There’s a newfound softness to his voice. It is odd, but also very familiar. Perhaps he said something similar to her in one of these “world-lines” he spoke of?

Whatever he said about time travel and the different worldlines, it sends her brain into chaos. It doesn’t make sense at first; it  _shouldn’t_ make sense. But all those dreams, they didn’t feel like dreams. They were real. They  _happened_ and no matter how much her brain of science denied them, her heart knew.

She turns back to look at him. What could’ve possibly happened in those three weeks?She thinks about what he said on the rooftop that day.  _Could it be...?_

All this time, she’s been looking for something. Looking for acceptance, looking for answers, looking for approval, looking to belong. After everything that happened, it feels like she has found something at last. Being here with him in this lab, being with everyone else, she starts feeling complete.

She starts finding comfort in them. Especially Okabe.

So, she believes him. She trusts he’s telling her the truth. She  _knows_ he is.

It does take a few more days for everything to settle in. Kurisu surprises herself about how calm she is about this. At least, as calm as she can be. Losing her thesis that she worked so hard on was a hard blow, even taking into consideration everything else that happened. But learning that this was the thesis that could’ve destroyed the world...in fact, it did at some point in a worldline where she died, bringing immense destruction.With a heavy heart, she abandons any hope of restarting her research. She secretly hopes that things were different, but she realises it’s all for the best. She can’t let anyone suffer because of this. She couldn’t let  _Okabe_ suffer.

* * *

She always catches herself staring at him. Not because of curiousity as she did earlier, wanting to uncover parts he used to keep from her, but perhaps something that could border on admiration. 

She hypothesises that this may be the result of her brain still not being over the trauma and that she’s latching onto whatever comfort she can find, that comfort being Okabe Rintarou. Her heart, on the other hand, feels entirely different.

Her heart skips a beat every time he enters the room. She finds herself listening to him intently every time he speaks. She feels chills every time the two of them get close. She wants to spend more and more time with him. She wants to talk to him more, to hear his voice. She wants to reach out to him, to be  _with_ him.

She supposes that he is attractive, in a messy kind of way. He carries his own charm. He is smart, despite the way he acts and carries himself. He’s a good person at heart. She wonders if that’s her type after all.

She has only known him a little over than two weeks, but it seems like forever. She doesn’t really know what is real and what is not. She has memories from these past couple of weeks, memories of events that didn’t really happen but they somehow feel real. She doesn’t know anything about the other worldlines, outside of what Okabe told her. She knows Okabe didn’t tell her everything, because she has these conflicting “memories” of the other worldlines.  _Reading Steiner_ , he calls it, the ability to recall what happened in the other worldlines. 

What exactly took place between the two of them, she isn’t sure of. Okabe tells her of all the times she had helped him out, of all the things she’d done for him, and of all the things he was grateful to her for, but something always feels missing. She doesn’t know what the versions of her from the other worldlines went through. Did they feel the same? Were their experiences the cause of her feeling this way now, in this worldline? Memories formed feelings, and certainly the memories of the other worldlines had a role to play.

Did something really happen between the two of them?

* * *

She notices him nod off to sleep beside her, on the sofa. Mayuri is out with her friends and Daru is at the maid café. The lab is dark and quiet. It’s just the two of them, with only the sound of rain to accompany them.

He looks undisturbed and untouched by the ghosts of the past. She rarely gets to see him like this, so quiet and still. He has his solemn moments, but they’re never this peaceful. He did say that he didn’t get a good rest last night. She can’t help but wonder whether it was because of one of those bad dreams he occasionally has. She gets up to fetch him a blanket, inferring he needs some good rest.

She gently pulls his legs to one side and lays him down on the sofa, careful not to wake him up and lays his head down on the other side. She spreads the blanket and slowly pulls it over him. In the process, her hand lightly brushes against the stubble beneath his chin. The feeling immediately stirs something within her. It’s all too familiar, like she has been this close to him before, like she has  _felt_ this before.  _In this very lab...there was the time in the rain..._ Her cheeks heat up as certain images flash before her eyes. 

_Him, and I..._

Okabe’s eyes flutter open. There’s a long tense moment before they both realise how their faces are just mere inches apart. Kurisu gasps and immediately pulls back, the red in her cheeks matching the red in his. Okabe sits up straight, confused and taken aback, the blanket sliding off of him.

“Wh...wha...”

“Y-you looked cold!” Kurisu stutters. “So, I just wanted to...cover you up...”  _That sounds wrong._

“Oh.”

“Sorry...to wake you up.” She turns redder. The images won’t leave her mind.

“That’s fine. I wasn’t planning on sleeping now anyway.”

The air is filled with tension they’re both unwilling to acknowledge. They sit in silence after that. Okabe keeps himself distracted browsing on Daru’s computer and Kurisu has her face buried in Mayuri’s Oopa pillow. Numerous thoughts go through her mind.  _What were those memories? Did they really...?_

The questions brewing within her are killing her. She has all these things she needs to know, she has all these feelings. She has learned so much in a span of a couple of days, and even though she pretends to be okay with it, she’s still not sure about them. Then, she recalls memories of things that never happened, contradicting her denial. She’s still not over her father’s attempt at her life. Her mind is a mess, and she doesn’t know why. She feels torn at times, but whenever she looks at him, all the torment settles down for just a while. And now, all these memories of him and her together...

“Why did you save me, Okabe?” she blurts out, surprising even herself. 

Okabe turns around to look at her, an eyebrow raised. He doesn’t seem to know where this is coming from. “I told you, didn’t I?”

_Because you’re too important._ She recalls the words he said, words that she had never thought she would hear.

“Why am I important to you?” She realises that she sounds more desperate than she intends to be. She wants to say more, but she bites down her tongue. 

Concern grows on his face and he slowly stands up. “Christina...”

“Why...did you save me?” She hugs the pillow tighter.

He eyes her for a while, studying her. That distant sadness is reflected in his eyes. He seems to be in thought, not sure how he should respond. After a pause, he then slowly relaxes his tensed shoulders. “It’s not just that you’re important to me, Christina,” he says, his voice low, “it’s that you’re my most important person.” 

She looks up at him, her vision growing blurry from tears. The words hit her hard and her shock is apparently visible on her face. There’s a trace of a smile playing on his lips in response. “I was assigned a mission from the me in a future where you didn’t live,” he explains. “I got a mission to save you, and to prevent that future from happening. It was from a future where I still didn’t let your memory go. It was from a man who had lost you and still continued to look. I think about that man a lot, especially now that I've met you again. There’s no possibility of him existing now, but at some point, he did exist. He lived without you.  _I_ lived in a world without you. And now, every time I look at you, being alive and well in front of me, I realise how fortunate I really am. I feel at ease. My most important person is with me, right in front of me.” He steps a little closer and Kurisu’s heart skips a beat. 

“I’ve cheated Time to save you. I've finally won. After so many failures, I won. I don’t know what this future holds, but at least you’re there to see it with me. That’s all I care about.”

The Oopa falls from her now-loose grip, rolling down on the floor. “How?" she croaks out. "How can you say that? How can you...just not...care?”

He sighs. “I honestly don’t know. I don’t think I can get over it. I just...” he scratched his head in thought. “There’s a lot of things that happened and I may have lost sense of my reality at one point. But all I know is one thing; that you’ve always been my constant through it all. That’s why I’m still here. Knowing you’ll be there no matter what. It’s all I need to at least get through. My one source of comfort: you.”

That sadness in his eyes in gone now. Maybe it’s still there, but the look in his features have finally started making sense—complete sense, that is. She’s at a loss for words.  _Why am I so important to you_?

“I think you and I both know that,” he says, as though reading her mind. He walks closer to her and heart thumps loudly against her chest. He kneels down in front of her, tugging at her sleeve and then slowly pulling her into a hug. As he does so, tears stream down her red cheeks, a deformed and dazed smile playing on her lips. 

“Okabe...you...” 

He holds her tight and everything falls into place. She melts in his embrace and holds him tighter, hearing from him another set of words she never thought she would get to hear.

“It’s because I love you.”

**Author's Note:**

> Thank you for reading! Leave a comment to fuel my desire to write more about them :D


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